Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill (1898-1956), the second son of the 9th Duke of Marlborough and his first wife, Consuelo Vanderbilt was Sir Winston Churchill's first cousin once removed. They are buried beside one another at St Martin's Church, Bladon.

Maze was introduced to Lord Ivor by his mother Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan in the 1920s and they were to become great friends, enjoying many weekends together at Blenheim Palace and at the Chateau Saint-Georges-Motel. In his interview with Wolfgang Fischer in 1967, Maze recalled, "We went to Paris together and I took him round galleries and introduced him to painters. He was a man of rare sensitivity and distinction and, as he started acquiring impressionists, his inborn appreciation and judgement never led him astray.. he just loved and understood painting."

Lord Ivor was a great art collector and organised Anglo-French art exhibitions, including Maze's first exhibition in New York in 1939 at the Bignou Gallery. Lord Ivor wrote the introduction to the exhibition catalogue and Winston Churchill wrote the foreword. Lord Ivor's racing colours, the subject of this pastel, were bequeathed to Sir Winston Churchill.